CVE-2026-2833

CVE-2026-2833 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Cloudflare Pingora with a CVSS 3.x base score of 9.1. It is not currently listed as actively exploited by CISA, and its EPSS exploit-prediction score is low. The underlying weakness is classified as CWE-444.

Key facts

Description

An HTTP request smuggling vulnerability (CWE-444) was found in Pingora's handling of HTTP/1.1 connection upgrades. The issue occurs when a Pingora proxy reads a request containing an Upgrade header, causing the proxy to pass through the rest of the bytes on the connection to a backend before the backend has accepted the upgrade. An attacker can thus directly forward a malicious payload after a request with an Upgrade header to that backend in a way that may be interpreted as a subsequent request header, bypassing proxy-level security controls and enabling cross-user session hijacking. Impact This vulnerability primarily affects standalone Pingora deployments where a Pingora proxy is exposed to external traffic. An attacker could exploit this to: * Bypass proxy-level ACL controls and WAF logic * Poison caches and upstream connections, causing subsequent requests from legitimate users to receive responses intended for smuggled requests * Perform cross-user attacks by hijacking sessions or smuggling requests that appear to originate from the trusted proxy IP Cloudflare's CDN infrastructure was not affected by this vulnerability, as ingress proxies in the CDN stack maintain proper HTTP parsing boundaries and do not prematurely switch to upgraded connection forwarding mode. Mitigation: Pingora users should upgrade to Pingora v0.8.0 or higher As a workaround, users may return an error on requests with the Upgrade header present in their request filter logic in order to stop processing bytes beyond the request header and disable downstream connection reuse.

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-2833?
An HTTP request smuggling vulnerability (CWE-444) was found in Pingora's handling of HTTP/1.1 connection upgrades. The issue occurs when a Pingora proxy reads a request containing an Upgrade header, causing the proxy to pass through the rest of the bytes on the connection to a backend before the backend has accepted the upgrade. An attacker can thus directly forward a malicious payload after a request with an Upgrade header to that backend in a way that may be interpreted as a subsequent request header, bypassing proxy-level security controls and enabling cross-user session hijacking. Impact This vulnerability primarily affects standalone Pingora deployments where a Pingora proxy is exposed to external traffic. An attacker could exploit this to: * Bypass proxy-level ACL controls and WAF logic * Poison caches and upstream connections, causing subsequent requests from legitimate users to receive responses intended for smuggled requests * Perform cross-user attacks by hijacking sessions or smuggling requests that appear to originate from the trusted proxy IP Cloudflare's CDN infrastructure was not affected by this vulnerability, as ingress proxies in the CDN stack maintain proper HTTP parsing boundaries and do not prematurely switch to upgraded connection forwarding mode. Mitigation: Pingora users should upgrade to Pingora v0.8.0 or higher As a workaround, users may return an error on requests with the Upgrade header present in their request filter logic in order to stop processing bytes beyond the request header and disable downstream connection reuse.
How severe is CVE-2026-2833?
CVE-2026-2833 has a CVSS 3.x base score of 9.1, rated critical severity. It is exploitable over network with low attack complexity, requires no privileges and no user interaction. Impact on confidentiality is high, integrity high, and availability none.
Is CVE-2026-2833 being actively exploited?
It is not currently listed in CISA's KEV catalog. Its EPSS exploit-prediction score is 1% (47th percentile), an estimate of the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
What products are affected by CVE-2026-2833?
CVE-2026-2833 affects Cloudflare Pingora. See the affected-products list for the exact vulnerable versions.
How do I fix CVE-2026-2833?
Review the linked vendor and NVD advisories for patched versions and mitigations, then upgrade or apply the recommended workaround. Given its critical severity, prioritise patching exposed systems.
Does CVE-2026-2833 have an EU (EUVD) identifier?
Yes. CVE-2026-2833 is tracked in the ENISA EU Vulnerability Database (EUVD) as EUVD-2026-9510.
When was CVE-2026-2833 published?
CVE-2026-2833 was published on 2026-03-05 and last updated on 2026-06-17.

References

Affected products (1)

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